Prolific ‘Champion Mojo Storyteller’ Joe R. Lansdale publishes his new novella, ‘Prisoner 489’ today (18/11/14) through Dark Regions Press. Publishers Weekly boil the plot down to “a tight, spooky tale about what happens when an executed prisoner doesn’t stay dead.”Those who know Joe’s work are already familiar with the varied nature of his fiction. From hard hitting crime to science fiction and fantasy, Lansdale is a master at genre hopping, tightly written prose with a gift for dialogue that makes his characters as likeable as they are memorable. His credits include ‘Bubba Ho-Tep,’ ‘The Bottoms’ and the much-loved Hap Collins and Leonard Pine series. Typically, Joe’s stories fizz with suspense and extreme violence, dark, often hilarious comedy is never far away.In Prisoner 489, Lansdale returns to one of his favourite arenas; horror.Set on an island opposite a maximum security prison housing the worst kind of offenders, “true evil, rotten inside, wearing their blackness deep at the core,” Bernard and his colleagues the young Wilson and the cynical Toggle pass the time and wait for the bodies of executed felons to be brought to them for burial. The dead men are known only by their execution number and placed in simple graves in the island cemetery known as ‘The Lot.’Joe evokes an atmosphere of pending unease in his descriptions for the setting, touching the prison walls “was like touching a corpse freshly washed in cold well water.” When the boatman Kettle arrives with prisoner 489, life changes in short order for the three men.What follows is an atmospheric ghost of a story that creeps up on you and then punches you in the face; hard.An almost languid feel starts the novella and, in time, Lansdale paints a vivid picture of the island routine and its inhabitants. The three men co-exist and co-operate but each is an outcast and a loner in his own way. Bernard, a man so lonely that he “had a hard time imagining a woman who wanted to go to bed with him,” tries to make sense of the events on the island as Toggle (“the kind of guy who could fix a motor and change a tire with harsh language”) goes missing.The story unfolds in a familiar Lansdale-esque manner, almost turning the pages for you on its way to a dark climax.The trademarks are all here; strong characters, great storytelling and first rate dialogue. Joe R. Lansdale has long been up there with the best; he seems to effortlessly and regularly write better known authors off the page. The already converted know exactly what I’m talking about. Those not yet on the train have a treat in store in the form of one of the most rewarding backlists in modern fiction. The man’s writing is all about the story; no pretention, no flab; just ‘here it is and let’s get to it.’If you like your horror to intrigue and surprise you, if you like to read it by torchlight, ‘Prisoner 489’ could well be your thing. For a consuming few hours today, it was certainly mine.